


Guilty Gentians

by BabyBoyBolide



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Flowers, Fluff, Guilt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyBoyBolide/pseuds/BabyBoyBolide
Summary: David loves his job at Camp Campbell. He loves working with his favorite kids and doing all he can to make their lives better. The counselor has always had a guilty secret that's eaten him alive for years. One day, he wakes up and it actually begins to eat him.Max is concerned about the overgrowth and wonders if reading the man's journal might help find the he cause.





	Guilty Gentians

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veneerofcute](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veneerofcute/gifts).



> This was a 2,500 word commission for VeneerOfCute!!! I absolutely loved writing this. Guilty Gentians is probably my favorite fic so far.

_ David didn’t know what it was, or how it started. _

 

He had woken up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. When he looked in the mirror and brushed his hair from his face, he saw it. A small blossom that was periwinkle in color. Vibrant and blinding, it drew attention from his freckles to the gentian flower on his face.

 

Surprised, he reached a hand up and let his digits trace the trumpet-shaped petals. A crease formed between his brow as he tried to figure out what had happened.

 

Perhaps a camper had intended on pranking him by gluing a flower to his face, he had thought. David pursed his bottom lip, the redhead felt around for the stem but felt none. Shrugging it off, he grasped the petals gently as to not destroy the beautiful plant, and tugged, expecting it to come off. Instead, a sharp pain rocketed from his cheek to his jaw, working its way to the back of his head.

 

He hissed and stumbled back in surprise, eyes wide. Panicked, he pulled his hand away and looked in the mirror. Around the pore where the flower seemed to be coming from, blood had welled to the surface and gathered there.

 

“What on God’s green Earth?” David barely spoke above a whisper, raising his hand to his face again.

 

Biting his bottom lip, he reached up and tugged roughly. Tears welled in his eyes from the intense tugging pain from the back of his jaw near his condylar process, wrapping around from the inside of his cheek near the upper half of his lip, where the flower came out. He felt a small  _ snap _ and the flower came out in his hand, as did part of a stem that wasn’t there before. Relief flooded him as the pain lessened greatly. It was still there, but considerably more dull than before.

 

Sighing, he looked up in the mirror. Ming-jades went wide with horror. If this was some kind of prank, it had gone  _ very _ wrong. David swallowed thickly as he brought his hand up to the wound. From one of his pores came a thin stem. A leaf had barely formed. Blood was gathered around the pore and rushed down his cheek.

 

Panicking, he reached for toilet paper as a droplet of ichor dribbled down his neck. He tore some from the roll and wiped it from his collarbone up to his cheek. Touching the wound hurt, making him hiss as he tossed the paper into the toilet and flushed it. David squinted in the mirror and examined it closer now that it was cleaned up.

 

A stem barely poked out from his pore, slightly stretched from where he had ripped the flower away. Dull ache settling at the back of his jaw, he realized that removing the stem wasn’t worth the pain it caused unless it caused issues. It was a beautiful thing, after all; how odd nature could be. Nothing could ever gain true control over nature.

 

Pressing his lips together in a thin line, the ginger ruffled his hair and decided to simply put n antibacterial ointment on the wound and cover it with a band-aid for the night and head to bed. He could figure it out in the morning.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It only got worse as time passed.

 

As the second day rolled around, two more flowers had grown. By the fifth day, his entire right cheek and the edge of his jaw were covered in beautiful gentian blossoms. The only colors that grew were a periwinkle blue and a rose pink. Although it was beautiful, it was  _ painful _ . David didn’t understand what was happening, and nobody did.

 

He contemplated going to a doctor, but what could a doctor do? The man knew that going to a doctor would only lead to long hours of testing and more questions than he already had. Nobody understood what was going on. Helpless and in pain, it didn’t take long for David to try and figure out what was happening by himself.

 

Time passed, and he began to notice things by the time Saturday rolled around.

 

Whenever David wasn’t feeling particularly like himself, he would sneak away from the campers and smoke a cigarette. Seven to eleven minutes of being alone was all it took for him to put on his happy face and get back to being the best him be could be.

 

Saturday morning, he stopped to count the new flowers that had bloomed overnight, and he had realized something. For every cigarette he had smoked since the first flower had appeared, another would come by the next day. It was simple- all he had to do was stop smoking!

 

* * *

 

 

_ Max is ten when he sneaks into David’s cabin. _

 

He pulls out the journal. It’s old and appears to be somewhat vintage. Stickers from the 90’s decorate the color and there’s a bookmark with a deer marking the last place David had written in. The brunet opened it to the last page with a giant grin on his face.

 

“ _ I hate myself. _ ”

 

Maximilian’s grin fell and his eyes widened before fluttering in disbelief. He narrowed them and read on.

 

“ _ I don’t understand why I’m so different. I’ve tried so hard. Therapy didn’t work, and I feel like working at Camp Campbell gets more and more difficult with each day that passes. He makes my heart beat fast, even when he shouldn’t. Max is just a boy. I don’t understand.  _ **_I just wish I was normal._ ** _ Being around Max is hard; it makes me feel more guilty than I should. I would never hurt him, so why do I feel so bad? I just want him to be safe, but I fear I may be the one to hurt him just by existing. Sometimes I consider ending it all just to keep the campers safe. _ ”

 

Jaw slack, he worked things over in his head. Swallowing thickly, the brunet thought things over before letting out a breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. Sliding the bookmark between the pages, he closed the worn diary and pressed his lips together in a thin line as he carefully set it back in the drawer.

 

A crease between his brow, he made his way towards the drawer, shoving his hands into his hoodie pockets. He had a feeling that he would be coming back to read that journal a lot more.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


David’s breath is caught on something that slipped down his throat in the middle of the night. Stumbling into the bathroom, he gasps for air only to get the object lodged further in his throat. It brings tears to his eyes. The heavy breathing hurts the inside of his cheek, just like when he tried to remove the first flower that had appeared. It stung and burned, making his jaw throb.

 

Shoving two fingers into his mouth, he feels a stem coming from the inside of his cheek and moving toward the back of his tongue. He gags on his digits as he pushes them further back, fingertips brushing against velvety petals. They barely grab onto it a pair of leaflets and tug. His gag reflex goes off and the man fights the urge to vomit.

 

Pulling the blossom from his mouth, David coughed and took a sharp breath in. His lungs flooded with air and filled him with relief. The man coughed, his shoulders hunching as he leaned over the sink and gripped the edge tightly.

 

A faint metallic taste stuck to his tongue. Running his tongue over the inside of the wound on his cheek, David cinched his nose. He lapped up the blood carefully and stood straight. Bringing a hand to his face, he opened his mouth wide.

 

Both hands were used to turn his cheek somewhat inside-out. There were a small hole and the end of a stem that poked at his gums that he supposed he would need to adjust to. It was too short for him to be able to cut off and chewing it off with his teeth would cause pain. Any sort of tug on the flora caused pain on a varying scale.

 

Sighing, he stuck his head out of the bathroom door and glanced towards his alarm clock. Since it was only an hour before he would need to wake the campers, he shook his head and decided to pick up his shaving cream and start getting ready for the day starting with a fresh shave.

 

He had an aching feeling that things weren’t going to get better any time soon.

 

* * *

  
  
  


The next year, Max doesn’t come to camp. Since the boy had come to camp every year for the past three years, David couldn’t help but worry. His first year at camp, the man recalled the boy’s bruises and his night terrors that often woke him at the night.

 

Memories that haunted him at some nights rose to the surface.

 

_ Max is eight when he first arrives at camp. His hair was shaved short. There was a bruise on his cheek when he walked off the bus. Trying to make conversation, David jokingly asked if he had tripped or walked into a door. The boy’s side-eye and a crease between his brows made the counselor’s chest clench with his worst fear. _

 

_ \--- _

 

_ David rushed towards Maximilian’s tent in a panic. His feet moved faster than his legs could handle. They burned, but he hardly felt it as he unzipped the tent flaps and yanked them open. Max sat in the corner of his cot, leaning against the corner of the tent. Mr. Honeynuts was held in his arms, his blanket wrapped tightly around him as he tried to hide from the monsters in his head. _

 

_ “Max, what’s wrong?” _

 

_ He had heard the boy scream, but it had been so quiet and shy like he was afraid of screaming. As if it would get him punished. The counselor thought he had been hallucinating it until another resounded. _

 

_ Approaching the boy, he carefully unwrapped him from the fabric cocoon he had made and sat on the edge of his bed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Did you have a nightmare?” _

 

_ There was a pause. _

 

_ Eventually, Max nodded and choked on an ashamed sob as David leaned in and wrapped his arms tightly around him. “You know that I’ll never let anyone hurt you, right?” _

 

_ That was the first time Max ever hugged him. _

 

David wonders what happened to make Max hate him so much. They had started off on such a good foot, but by his second year of camp, the brunet seemed to have an undying hatred for the man.

 

Remembering the bruises he saw on the boy’s back on the second day of camp when he was 9 made him clear his throat and try to fight the burning sensation in his nose as his body threatened to betray him and make him cry.

 

“ _ You know that I’ll never let anyone hurt you, right? _ ”

 

Max hated him for that exact reason, and it took him three years to figure out why.

 

A hand reaching up to the gentians on his face, he briefly wondered if this is what he deserved for letting Max get hurt as he did. Guilt settling over his chest, he made his way to bed. Unable to sleep, he felt the newest flower growing from his temple that night.

 

* * *

  
  
  


_ Max is twelve when he returns to Camp Campbell for his fourth year of summer camp. _

 

Last year, his parents hadn’t been able to afford to send him off to any camps, not even one as cheap as the one he went to every year. Having grown significantly, the boy stood nearly a foot taller than the last time David had seen him two years ago.

 

As he stepped off the bus, his teal eyes went wide with horror. David stood in front of the camp with his normally happy face.

 

But it wasn’t. Nothing was okay with this.

 

Panic flooded his chest at David’s face.

 

His features were buried under blue and pink trumpet-like blossoms. One of his eyes had even been overgrown with the flowers and had fallen out due to rotting. The counselor had taken it upon himself to remove the eye before it called for him needing medical attention from a doctor more than he already did. After all, nobody could help him with whatever ailment was currently plaguing him. More than half of his face had been swallowed by the overgrowth.

 

Somehow, that didn’t keep the redhead from smiling.

 

Max didn’t know how he could live with that. He vaguely recalled the pain David had gone through during his last year at camp and it made his stomach churn to think about. The tween couldn’t remember the last time he had genuinely been so concerned for the counselor.

 

By the time lunch had rolled around, the curly-top already made a plan. He wondered how long it would take to read a year’s worth of journal entries if he didn’t sleep that night.

 

The camper would find out soon enough.

 

* * *

  
  
  


_ “What’s wrong, Max?” David’s voice was chipper. It startled the brunet, making his heart pound in his chest. _

 

_ Max’s head snapped to his counselor. His teal eyes scanned the attire David wore, looking him up and down before he pulled his bottom lip into his mouth to gnaw on it lightly. Fear made his heart quake inside his chest. _

 

_ Out of all of his years at camp, David never wore long sleeves, or anything longer than half sleeves. Now the counselor wore a quarter sleeve shirt under his normal Camp Campbell uniform. To balance things out, his shorts were also longer and went to his knees. _

 

_ He patted the grass beside himself and furrowed his brows. _

 

_ “David,” Maximilian started in a solemn tone, “I like guys. I’ve never kissed a boy or done anything else with one, though. Does that make me a bad person? Liking men?” _

 

_ Sitting beside the camper, his eyes went wide as he shoved a hand into his lap and placed another gently onto the boy’s shoulder. “Of course not! Why would you think that.” _

 

_ “Gwen likes fish monsters. We saw it ourselves! Should she die?” _ _   
_ _   
_ __ The counselor gasped. “Goodness, Max! No! Where would you have gotten some ideas? Did your parents teach you that?”

 

_ Max shook his hand and let his hands rest on the grass beside him, leaning back onto his palms and shifting his weight as he grunted. “No.” _

 

_ “Well, whoever taught you that is a bad person!” _

 

_ “Are you a bad person?” _

 

_ David pressed his lips together and furrowed his brows. It was a complicated question; one he wasn’t sure how to answer. “I’d like to think I’m not.” _

 

_ “You think you are?” Max looked up at him and tilted his head. _

 

_ “Sometimes,” he answered in a soft tone, squeezing the camper’s shoulder gently. “Not all of the time. I’d like to think that I’m a very good man!” _

 

_ There was a moment of silence. Tension lingered in the air as the ginger pulled his hand away and leaned forward. For a moment, he glanced at his feet and swallowed thickly. His mind raced at a million miles a moment until Max spoke again. _

 

_ “You,” Max confessed, “I learned it from you.” _

 

David shifted and sat up in bed with a sigh. He ran a hand down his face, the only half of his face that he could feel anymore anyway. Standing, he walked to the restroom, not even bothering with a light. The man avoided mirrors and reflective surfaces as much as possible now. He couldn’t stand the sight of himself anymore.

 

_ Flabberghasted, David gasped and sat up straighter. His eyes were wide. “How could you have ever learned that from me? Was it something I said?” _

 

_ “I read your journal, David.” Max’s voice was firm and he narrowed his eyes. _

 

_ All of the tension that had melted away built up all at once. It nearly suffocated David as it weighed down on him and threatened to pin him to the ground. Both of his hands came up to his cheek. He couldn’t feel his cheek when his palm pressed against the velvet leaflets of the gentian flowers on his face. They traveled down his shoulder and part of his pectoral muscle over the past year. One day, they might just swallow him whole. _

 

_ If the guilt didn’t get to him first. _

 

_ David had no words. His lips pressed together in a thin line and tears threatened to bubble up from his eyes. He blinked them away before they could even form. _

 

_ Max reached up and placed a hand on his shoulder. He wished he could have felt it, but the blossoms kept him from feeling the familiar warmth of the other’s tan skin that he missed. The counselor was aware that Max could probably feel them through the fabric, but he wasn’t worried. It was obvious that they had spread. _

 

_ “David, you can’t control who you fall in love with. I don’t love you back, I don’t think I ever will. You’re like a father figure to me.” David nodded as tears welled in his eyes and he took a shuddering breath. “But you still can’t control who you fall in love with, how old they are,  _ **_who_ ** _ they are as a person, or when your love for them will fade. You’ve never hurt a child, have you?” _

 

_ Shaking his head, David buried his face into his hands and let out a sob. _

 

_ “You’ve never kissed one? Confessed your love?” _

 

_ David shook his head again and choked on his own breath. _

 

_ “Then why would you deserve to die? David, you’re such a kind person! If you’ve never hurt anyone, then why would  _ **_you_ ** _ deserve to die?” Max pressed his lips together and cinched his face as he suddenly pulled the man in close for a hug, burying his face into the counselor’s chest. “I don’t want you to die,” he choked out with a whimper of his own. _

 

Grasping around desperately in the dark, David furrowed his brows. He couldn’t find the toilet paper. Assuming he used it all and forgot to replace it, the man stood. Giving in, he grumbled and turned on the light to the restroom. 

 

For the first time in months, he looked himself in the mirror and his eyes went wide. It had been over a year since the first flower had blossomed, and a bud had never wilted.

A grin overcame him as he stared at the overgrowth in awe, admiring the three wilting gentians on his face. Today was going to be a good day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed!


End file.
